Cooling towers are heat exchangers of a type widely used to emanate low grade heat into the atmosphere and are typically utilized in electricity generation, air conditioning installations, and the like. These towers receive a relatively warm or hot fluid, and pass the fluid through the tower apparatus so that heat is extracted from the fluid by interaction with relatively cooler ambient air.
Cooling towers generally include counter-flow type cooling towers and cross-flow type cooling towers. In a counter-flow cooling tower, liquid of high temperature is cooled as it flows downwards through fill or packing and is brought into contact with air traveling upwards. Conversely, in a cross-flow cooling tower, liquid of high temperature is cooled with air that moves horizontally through the fill or packing. The heated air is exhausted into the atmosphere using a fan, and the cooling liquid is collected in a basin situated below the fill or packing.
Liquid is generally distributed through a cooling tower in one of two ways: gravity and spray. Typically, gravity systems are used in cross-flow cooling towers, and spray systems are used in counter-flow cooling towers. In a spray system, liquid of high temperature is distributed through the cooling tower using a series of spray nozzles mounted on distribution pipes. The spray nozzles are arranged to evenly distribute the liquid over the top of the fill. Once the liquid travels through the fill, it is collected at the bottom of the tower in a cold liquid basin. In a gravity system, liquid of high temperature is fed into a hot liquid basin disposed above the fill. The liquid then travels through holes or openings in the bottom of the hot liquid basin to the fill. Similar to the spray system, liquid that travels through the fill is collected at the bottom of the tower in a cold liquid basin.
A drawback associated with current cooling towers is that in some applications they can be very labor intensive in their assembly at the job site. The assembly of such towers oftentimes requires a dedicated labor force investing a large amount of hours. Accordingly, such assembly is labor intensive requiring a large amount of time and therefore can be costly. Uncertainties such as weather and site conditions may also affect the time required to assemble cooling towers at a job site. The quality of the labor force may also lead to quality and performance issues associated with the towers. Thus, it is desirable to assemble as much of the tower structure at the manufacturing plant or facility, prior to shipping it to the installation site.
But while it may be desirable to assemble tower components at a factory, conventional designs for cooling towers oftentimes necessitate their assembly at a job site. For example, factors such as the size of the various tower components and their structural strength may limit their ability to be manufactured at the factory and transported onsite. One particular component that may present assembly and transportation challenges is the liquid collection basin or commonly referred to as the cold water basin. Many conventional cooling towers are constructed with a single cold water basin for receiving and holding water that has been cooled by the tower. Due to the size of the cold water basin, it is costly to transport it in pre-assembled form to a job site. In cooling towers with a single cold water basin, the size of the cold water basin also increases as the towers increase in cooling capacity. While a solution may be to ship the cold water basin in multiple components to a job site for final assembly, such leads to greater labor costs and inconsistent quality in assembly due to on-site conditions such as those described above. Moreover, it oftentimes is difficult to ensure that the various components of the cold water basin are fully sealed to one another at a job site.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a cooling tower that is assembled using components that can be manufactured in a factory and transported to a job site. In particular, it is desirable to have a cooling tower that can be assembled with modular components, including components that have pre-assembled cold water basins.